In a study of medical school applicants, 66% of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage of any group. Only 44% of biochemistry majors were admitted (Lewis Thomas, as reported in Phi Delta Kappan, February 1994).

The very best engineers and technical designers in the Silicon Valley industry are, nearly without exception, practicing musicians. (Grant Venerable, The Center for the Arts in the Basic Curriculum, New York 1989)

Students who studied music scored higher on both the verbal and math portions of the SAT than non-music students. (College Entrance Examination Board as reported in Symphony, Sep-Oct. 1996).

Students in two Rhode Island elementary schools given a sequential, skill-building music program showed a marked improvement in reading and math skills. (Gardiner, Fox, Jeffry, and Knowles, as reported in Nature, May 23, 1996).

According to a 2009 Study

42.6 million people in the United States sing in an organized choir

They participate in more than 270,000 choirs that existed in 2009

There are more people in the United States that sing as a pastime than participate in any other performing art.

According to Chorus America, these numbers are up significantly from the last study that measured national trends in 2003.

Parents of some 10.1 million children that currently sing in American choirs believe that by participating in a chorus, their children are gaining valuable life skills and achieve higher academic success.

What do students learn in choir?1.Actions have consequences. They can bring things into existence and doing so provides intrinsic satisfactions.2.That experience can be transformed into sounds, or music, which are public displays of private consciousness.3.That the making of music allows imagination to play, both for the self and as the self relates to others.4.That the making of music requires invention, structuring, and making internal judgments rather than adhering to external standards. Such judgments require flexibility and independence.5.That the creation of music is complex, requiring attention to relationships, context awareness, a sense of the whole, rather than discreet bits of learning intrinsically rewarded.6. The successful creation of music requires skills, the growth of which gives inner satisfaction and a sense of competence. Because theact of creation is an act of clarifying feeling, of forming feeling, growth in skills and growth in inner expression go hand in hand.7.The music can embody qualities of experience beyond the objective, capturing, by analogue, the “forms of feeling.”8.That there are ideas, images and feelings that can only be expressed artistically, not scientifically or verbally. That music provides its own uniquemode of creative expression…thus its own unique mode of “knowing” or “understanding.”9.That the world, and life itself, are sources of aesthetic satisfactions, sensitivity to which requires the growth of an aesthetic attitude…anopenness to the aesthetic in experience. Creating music develops this openness, awareness and sensitivity to the world’s expressive values.10.For all these learnings to occur, quality literature and teaching are necessary, or potentials will never be realized.We at North devote our professional lives to assisting students in knowing and feeling the art of music. Aesthetic education is our goal and aesthetic experience ourwish for every student in North Choir.